Defining the Role of the Director of Basketball Operations. An Investigation of Role Ambiguity within Intercollegiate Athletic Departments

Abstract

The current study sought to understand if NCAA Division I Directors of Basketball Operations (DOBO) experience role ambiguity due to the way the way the position has evolved. Role ambiguity refers to the absence of well-defined understandings about the actions necessary to complete the tasks for a given position and the Role Ambiguity Scale (RAS) was used to collect data from current DOBOs. Results showed that role ambiguity is evident in among certain areas of roles for DOBOs, but collectively DOBOs do not experience a significant level of ambiguity. Due to the lack of prior investigation regarding the DOBO position, several interesting findings were found including a significant difference between male and female DOBOs with regard to career aspirations.